Published on 12, July, 2020
I work in a office building. I'm one of three women and a man. My job is to answer the phone and use a computer, my day consists of me typing, speaking on the phone and engaging in conversation (help!) with my work colleagues. My friend April who works next to me is really nice and I think she knows there's something different about me because she seems to give me a sort of comforting smile a lot of the time. Work is hard, every day I spend ages making sure I look right for work and change my clothes and redo my hair about fifty times before I finally leave. When I get to work I spend the day feeling anxious because I know I'll have to engage in workplace communication, either work banter or one of my colleagues will ask me if I have a file or if someone called. This sends me in to a massive brain shutdown moment where I spend the next ten minutes trying to think and communicate at the same time, which results in me not finding the right words and just sort of babbling like a baby.
Working is difficult, mostly because of the amount of things I have to do. Focusing, communicating, being out of my safe zone and *shudders* office meetings where I sometimes have to stand up and talk to my colleagues as well as our boss... Usually after a meeting I end up throwing up in the bathroom and have a mini panic attack.
Does anyone else here work and have similar problems to me?
Hi Emma,
I've worked for the same company for the last 17 years. When I'm in the office, it's open plan. I'm very lucky in that it doesn't get too noisy because we don't have 'phones, and we've scrapped the meeting rooms in favour of virtual meetings on Skype. I'm in I.T. so we're very task-focused (not people-focused), and it doesn't particularly matter if you're weird or different, because everyone here is to some degree, it's a very accepting place. I also work from home a number of days a week, as we don't have enough desks to have everyone in all of the time, and that's just perfect. Most of my "conversations" are through online chat with my colleagues both in the office and in another country. It hasn't always been like this, but nowadays my job is quite ideal. I don't have to deal with people, I get to work from home, and I get to excel in the work that I do. I guess it depends on the job, the company, and how well the culture supports you and your differences/needs. Only my manager knows I have autism, other people just think I'm a "typical I.T. person", i.e. very good at the technical work but not so good at the people stuff. Nowadays the only time I "Play the 'A' card" is at the Christmas meal - instead of going out for a Christmas social meal with the team, I get to go on one just me and my wife and the company pays for it. My manager doesn't particularly understand autism, but he does accept it, and my company has a big culture of acceptance. We have Pride groups, Disability groups, Volunteering groups, lots of wellbeing stuff available, and it's supported right the way from the very top of the company to the very bottom. I think that's because of the "mental health" movement we've had in this country the past few years, my company really jumped on board and strives to be the leader for workplace health and wellbeing. It's a massive multinational company so they can afford to support people with needs, although to be fair I don't really have special concessions for anything. I imagine it's more difficult for a smaller company if there's only 4 people and one needs more support than the others.
It's clear you understand which bits you struggle with and could do with more support on. It might be worth working through some of your tasks with your boss and team, to either get someone else to do parts of them or so you can get more support with them. I personally am really terrible at planning, so when I have a task that involves planning, I give that part to a colleague who's really good at planning. There's nothing that says I have to do the task; all the company cares about is that the task is done, so I figure it's better to get the planning bit done by the person who's best at planning, and get the technical bit done by the person who excels at that part. That way, the overall task gets done in the best way possible, and the company is using its resources in the best way, and the employees all get to do work they're good at and really enjoy. Everyone wins, and you end up with a better outcome.
If you know what you excel at, and what you struggle with, you can either try adapting your job to fit you better, or you can find a job that suits your skills better. I know it's easy to say "find another job", what I meant was that there might be a career you're particularly suited to that you haven't tried yet, so speaking to a career counsellor could be really worthwhile.
Hoe this has been of some help :)
Things are going from bad to worse for me. As I am as yet undiagnosed , the transport staff at work don’t seem to be taking it seriously, they say they understand my condition, then they go and do things that they know will send me off the rails. I am starting to become very depressed, and don’t want to go to work.